MVP: Anthony Davis scored a career-high 38 points in 37 minutes tonight. He also had 12 rebounds and 1 block. He went 2 of 3 from downtown, all of those were from the huge 4th quarter rally that tied the game and sent it to overtime.

LVP: J.R. Smith, who was signed by the Thunder in Free Agency, didn’t shoot the ball quite well versus the Lakers. He only got 3 of his 13 shots to fall in tonight and none of his 5 attempts from beyond the arc went in.

X-Factor/s: Julius Randle scored a season-high 22 points with 11 rebounds and 2 blocks. Another player that stepped up his game is Emmanuel Mudiay. He was just averaging 6.8 assists in his last 12 games but he turned it around tonight where he finished with a total of 15 assists, paired with 19 points and 9 rebounds.

I have some explaining to do. My anti-virus deleted all of my saves so for these past week I've just been redoing the rosters for each team. There will be new standings in the month of February (since I simmed up to it.) and also new injured players. Next post will be a monthly recap from last week's save and in then I simmed the whole month of February except the All-Star Weekend so stay tuned.

Guidelines for Stats:PER - Player Efficiency Rating - a system that rates every player's statistical performance.EFF - Efficiency - accounts for both a player's offensive contributions (points, assists) and his defensive contributions (steals, blocks),TS% - True Shooting % - measures a player's efficiency at shooting the ball. It is intended to more accurately calculate a player's shooting than field goal percentage, free throw percentage, and three-point field goal percentage taken individually.EFG - Effective Field Goal % - A metric used in NBA basketball that is similar to Field Goal Percentage, but adds an additional parameter. This parameter adjusts for the fact that 3-point field goals are worth 50 percent more than 2-point field goals.USG - Usage Rate - measures a team's tendency of using a certain playerEWA - Estimated Wins Added - estimated wins added by a certain player to his team for his playPPWS - Points Per Weighted Shot - statistics figure that speaks more to a particular player’s scoring efficiency than does scoring average

The Sports Illustrated crew joins Kevin Parker Sr. in his office as they conduct an interview about his current plans for the team.

SI: "You've only made 1 trade this season compared to last season where you managed to change almost all the faces of your roster. What changed now?"

KP: "Well I think this team that I built can be title contenders for now and I don't want to risk all of that with a trade that might cause our fallout."

SI: "What do you see in Skal Labissiere that you traded away Porzingis for?"

KP: "Mainly his potential and the energy he brings to the court. He's like a spark plug off the bench that we can rely on to get us going when the starters are not producing well."

SI: "What do you think can be your worst nightmare this season?"

KP: "Probably if any of my two columns go down with injuries."

SI: "Columns?"

KP: "Anthony Davis and Julius Randle. The 'Twin Towers' isn't original anymore so I just call them that. Both are lengthy and have always been constantly improving. It would be a shame to see them go down now."

SI: "There's been talks of the Lakers moving to Canada, primarily in Montreal. Can you confirm this rumor?"

KP: "I've been mulling over this decision since last year now. I have the full support of the President of Canada and the whole city of Montreal and I've actually gone to countless meetings with Commissioner Silver about the anticipated move of the whole franchise. So, in short, yes we are expected to move there this offseason.

I know that this probably will affect the way die hard Lakers fans look at us but I think 2 teams in one city is overkill. All we can all do now is just sit back and hope for the best this offseason."

Shortly after releasing the roster for the All-Star Game, the NBA has also publicly released the rosters for the Stars and Elites. The Stars will be coached by Allen Iverson and the Elites by Tyronne Lue. OP thinks Stars will step over the Elites.

Toronto - Six players will compete in a Three-Point Contest in front of 20,000 people. Those are Bradley Beal of the Washington Wizards, James Harden of the Houston Rockets, Paul George of the Indiana Pacers, Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors, Devin Booker of the Phoenix Suns, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Bradley Beal has been stepping up his game as of late and is averaging a career-high in 3pt% this season with the injury-riddled Wizards. James Harden has been cooking the whole season, leading his team in points per game with 22.9 and assists. Paul George has had an up-down season so far as he struggles with injuries. Stephen Curry, or should we say Chef Curry, is leading the Warriors as usual as they are currently at the top of the league. Devin Booker has been flourishing in Phoenix; The sharpshooter has drawn comparison with the likes of Stephen Curry and Ray Allen. Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving seems to be managing well with LeBron James at the helm in Cleveland where they are tied at first place with the Chicago Bulls.

The crowd went nuts when Stephen Curry tied Paul George's record of 23 with the buzzer-beating money ball. It was 23-all and they were forced to battle it out again but with only just 30s on the clock.

George missed all of his first rack and by the time the buzzer went off, he was just in his 3rd rack and only had 4 points in his name. It was a whole new story for the league leader in 3PT Makes, Stephen Curry. He managed to get to the 3rd rack without any misses and ended up with a solid 15-point performance.

"I was just focusing on hitting as many shots as possible in 30 seconds. When I got in rhythm in the first rack, I kinda had a feeling that I'm going to win it. For sure.", said Stephen Curry while clutching his baby daughter Riley in his right hand and the trophy in his left.

Toronto - Mario Hezonja and Jabari Parker tried their best to snatch the trophy from Zach Lavine.

Jabari Parker's Dominique-esque strong front windmill dunk was his best rated dunk with a 48. He finished with 117 points through 3 rounds.

Mario Hezonja's self-oop and the reverse one-hand jam earned him a 47 in his last round that led to his loss. He had 121 points in the night.

Zach Lavine needed a perfect 50 or at least a 49 to tie things up with Hezonja. Instead of tying, he managed to grab the title with a self-oop off the backboard and the Carter-like dunk. Lavine ended up with 50 and won the trophy for the second straight time.

Stephen Curry won’t participate in All-Star Game to rest knees, Mudiay fills in

It looks like we won’t be seeing any 100-point games anytime soon this weekend. Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors announces that he will not play in the All-Star Game to rest his right knee which he aggravated in the Taco Bell Skills Challenge last night.

Curry will be replaced by Emmanuel Mudiay, who is unarguably the biggest snub in this year’s ASG. Aside from points per game, Mudiay actually owns Curry in assists, rebounds, and steals.

With Mudiay joining in the West’s Starting Five, there are now 3 Lakers in the starting lineup alone.

The Stars, led by the Lakers G Kelly Oubre and Emmanuel Mudiay, came out to impress in the first half. Oubre scored 22 points in the 1st quarter while hitting 4 out of his 6 three-point attempts. Mudiay didn’t score as much as Oubre but it was his skill in playmaking that made him stand out. He had a total of 14 assists, 7 of those were in the 1st quarter.

Okafor’s Elites struggled to keep up with the Stars in the first half as they got outscored 35 to 55 at halftime. They turned it around in the second half where Bacon and Turner got hot. Bacon finished with 17 points on a 33% clip and Turner scored 15 points in 5-6 shooting.

The Elites started to take charge in the last minutes of the ball game but a resounding dunk by Jaylen Brown and Brandon Ingram sealed the game for the Stars.

The game ended with Okafor missing a hook shot against Porzingis that would’ve won them the game.

With the much-anticipated event of the All-Star Weekend, the East and West teams didn’t disappoint.

The East saw themselves down by 8 points in the 1st quarter (41-33) where Julius Randle made most of his damage en route to his 25-point outing. The West followed it up with a 33-point quarter, completely outscoring the East again who only managed to get a total of 24 in 12 minutes.

The Western All-Stars, led by Julius Randle (25 pts) and James Harden (18 pts) led for the whole game and it was just too easy for them.

The closest the East got was when the Western All-Stars tried to insert all of their point guards in the lineup. It ended up disastrous for them and it sparked an 18-5 run by the Cavs that cut the lead to 4 points but James Harden put an end to their run with 3 straight triples that forced the East to take a timeout.

Guidelines for Stats:PER - Player Efficiency Rating - a system that rates every player's statistical performance.EFF - Efficiency - accounts for both a player's offensive contributions (points, assists) and his defensive contributions (steals, blocks),TS% - True Shooting % - measures a player's efficiency at shooting the ball. It is intended to more accurately calculate a player's shooting than field goal percentage, free throw percentage, and three-point field goal percentage taken individually.EFG - Effective Field Goal % - A metric used in NBA basketball that is similar to Field Goal Percentage, but adds an additional parameter. This parameter adjusts for the fact that 3-point field goals are worth 50 percent more than 2-point field goals.USG - Usage Rate - measures a team's tendency of using a certain playerEWA - Estimated Wins Added - estimated wins added by a certain player to his team for his playPPWS - Points Per Weighted Shot - statistics figure that speaks more to a particular player’s scoring efficiency than does scoring average